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Quake is major test for hard-luck California city

Ellen Knickmeyer Associated Press

Updated:
08/26/2014 09:34:23 PM EDT

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Contractors pull loose bricks from the roof of an earthquake damaged 36,000 square foot former boat shop on Mare Island Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2014, in Vallejo, Calif. The building dates from 1904 and was used by the Navy. The bayside city that twice was briefly the capital of California sustained more than $5 million in damage and dozens of injuries. It was the latest blow to a town that has weathered years of bankruptcy and is now beset by gangs and crime. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

VALLEJO, Calif. (AP) — The historic blue-collar town of Vallejo is a short distance but a far cry from the touristy Napa Valley vineyards and quaint towns. So when Sunday's earthquake struck, the damage to the wine industry took center stage and the rubble in Vallejo got scant attention.

The bayside city that twice was briefly the capital of California sustained millions of dollars in damage and dozens of people were injured, with a couple hospitalized.

Just 10 miles from the quake's epicenter, parts of the town suffered broken windows and collapsed masonry.

On Vallejo's Mare Island, the first U.S. naval shipyard on the Pacific, numerous century-old buildings used today by more than 100 businesses and other enterprises suffered damage, mostly to their facades, officials said.

Contractors sort fallen ones from an earthquake damaged 36,000 square foot former boat shop on Mare Island, Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2014, in Vallejo, Calif. The building dates from 1904 and was used by the Navy. The bricks are to be saved for a possible repair of the building. The historic blue-collar town of Vallejo is a short distance but a far cry from the touristy Napa Valley's vineyards and quaint towns, but when Sunday's big earthquake struck, it was not spared. The bayside city that twice was briefly the capital of California sustained more than $5 million in damage and dozens of injuries. It was the latest blow to a town that has weathered years of bankruptcy and is now beset by gangs and crime. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg) (Eric Risberg/AP)

The quake — although it exacted a greater toll in damage and injuries in Napa Valley — was the latest blow to a hard-luck community that has weathered years of bankruptcy and is now beset by poverty, gangs and crime.

For City Manager Daniel Keen, the magnitude-6.0 quake posed the first major test for this city of about 100,000 people since it emerged from bankruptcy three years ago with budget, staff and public services pared back.

"This city has been through an awful lot," Keen said, including budget cuts that leave it operating at about 50 percent of normal city staffing. But, he said, "we'd never really worked together as a team" in an emergency before Sunday's quake.

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Mostly, it seemed on Tuesday that Vallejo came through the challenge. Yellow-hatted building inspectors and structural engineers, including 20 from the state who showed up that morning to help, climbed the rolling city's hilltops to scan chimneys and rooftops for damage.

In the parking lot of Vallejo's First Baptist Church, 26-year-old Leslie Thomas and others lined up for a free lunch, as usual. But it was the Salvation Army, rather than the usual church workers, serving the coffee, pastries and boxed meals this time. The quake had knocked loose the brick bell tower of the church, forcing local officials to close it and the charity to take over responsibility for the soup kitchen.

An earthquake damaged home sits on officers row on Mare Island, Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2014, in Vallejo, Calif. Most of the historic row homes had fallen chimneys and were sealed off. The historic blue-collar town of Vallejo is a short distance but a far cry from the touristy Napa Valley's vineyards and quaint towns, but when Sunday's big earthquake struck, it was not spared. It was the latest blow to a town that has weathered years of bankruptcy and is now beset by gangs and crime. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg) (Eric Risberg/AP)

"Wouldn't want a lot of people standing in there and then all of a sudden it just collapses," Thomas said.

Vallejo is less than 15 miles south of tony Napa, the wining, dining and tourism center hardest hit by Sunday's quake, but Vallejo is in some ways a world away.

While the wine country thrived, financial mismanagement and the collapse of the housing bubble meant Vallejo took one of the hardest dives of any city in the recent recession. Bankruptcies, mortgage defaults and joblessness soared.

The city's poverty rate stands at 16 percent, and personal income is two-thirds that of Napa residents.

Vallejo saw better times in the 19th century, twice serving briefly as an early capital of California. Much of the housing stock is brick Victorians, veterans of California's quakes.

A crane lowers pieces from a collapsed elevator shaft outside an earthquake damaged former department store Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2014, in Vallejo, Calif. The historic blue-collar town of Vallejo is a short distance but a far cry from the touristy Napa Valley's vineyards and quaint towns, but when Sunday's big earthquake struck, it was not spared. The bayside city that twice was briefly the capital of California sustained more than $5 million in damage and dozens of injuries. It was the latest blow to a town that has weathered years of bankruptcy and is now beset by gangs and crime. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg) (Eric Risberg/AP)

Elizabeth Hoffman ticked off past quakes felt here: "1906, 1989, and now. I don't think they're going to survive another one." Hoffman, 34, was taking her elementary-school-age son around Tuesday to show him the damage from the latest temblor.

Her driveway was one of 30 sites the city deemed too dangerous to enter because of quake damage. The shaking, less severe overall than up north in Napa, had sent a neighbor's Victorian chimney down on her parked car.

Instead of seeking out an evacuation center, residents who were leery of their buildings after the quake found lodging with friends and family instead, Salvation Army Capt. Vickie Harvey said.

The final damage toll would likely be in the tens of millions of dollars, said Keen, the city manager.

Downtown Tuesday, a crane parked on a blocked-off street of empty stores and thrift shops hauled up rubble from a four-story building whose floors had collapsed in on themselves.

The hard side of everyday life was evident among the quake repairs. Residents walking back from a food bank with arms heaped with canned goods stopped to talk with neighbors about the quake — the new cracks they were noticing in their homes, how someone's cat had behaved in the quake. They were checking on each other, seeing if anyone needed a hand.

"There's a weird camaraderie in this town when weird stuff happens," Harvey said. "People help each other."

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City workers at right map out the installation of fencing around earthquake damaged buildings Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2014, in Napa, Calif. The earthquake that jolted California's wine capital may have caused at least $1 billion in property damage, but it also added impetus to the state's effort to develop an early warning system that might offer a few precious seconds for residents to duck under desks, trains to slow down and utility lines to be powered down before the seismic waves reach them. The magnitude-6.0 quake struck early Sunday near the city of Napa. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg) (Eric Risberg/AP)